A cyber attack launched by hackers on the servers of Cryptocurrency Exchange services provider ‘Binance’ is said to have resulted in the theft of over 7000 Bitcoins worth more than $43.8 million. The said Chinese company which now moved its IT infrastructure to Japan says that the attack took place when hackers gained access to a large number of user API Keys, 2FA codes to smartly carry out the attack.
According to the sources reporting to Cybersecurity Insiders, cyber crooks used a variety of techniques such as malware and phishing to gain access into the official network of Binance from which they stole the digital currency. The transactions were made to 44 outputs out of which 21 were Segregated Witness Addresses which received 99.97% of funds. Why the funds were transferred to SegWit addresses is still unknown.
A UK resource which keeps track of BTC fund transactions says that the funds from 41 addresses were later transferred to seven addresses out of which of them now hold 1,060 BTC and one holds over 760.7 BTC.
Binance has released a press statement on Tuesday and said that only those funds stored in hot wallets were compromised- means only 2% of the total exchange value of accounts was stolen and so the company has assured that the lost currency will be restored from the exchange’s Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) funds.
“All funds are safe,” said Changpeng CZ Zhao, Founder, and CEO of Binance.
More details will be updated shortly!
Note- Binance happens to be one of the worlds biggest cryptocurrency exchange company in terms of trading volume and acts as a trading platform for more than 100 digital currencies. Since China banned cryptocurrency trading in Sept’17, Binance decided to move its servers and headquarters to Japan, but still has some offices operating in Taiwan.
